Why are public media giants NPR and CPB fighting in court this week?

The gap is widening between NPR and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the nonprofit that funneled federal dollars to public media until Congress cut that funding earlier this year.

NPR’s legal team privately questioned CPB’s CEO, Patricia Harrison, under oath earlier this month, according to the radio network’s legal filings, and is scheduled to do so publicly at a court hearing Tuesday morning.

In court documents, NPR provided evidence to Promote her cause The nonprofit’s board of directors first approved a multi-year, multimillion-dollar contract for NPR to operate a satellite distribution system for public radio stations. Next, NPR alleges that CPB illegally caved to political pressure by canceling the contract just days after President Trump warned that NPR should receive no more federal dollars. NPR asserts that this is another example of a major institution capitulating to the whims of the president.

CPB rejects that, saying it awarded the contract to a different group to better serve a variety of public radio stations in the country. NPR and CPB declined to comment for this story, citing the lawsuit.

The two institutions – along with PBS – have stood together at the heart of public media for more than half a century. They presented a united front, at least publicly, as they lobbied lawmakers against it Recovering $1.1 billion It has already been approved by Congress and signed into law by the president for the broader public information system.

But behind the scenes, CPB and PBS officials noted They will not object to withdrawing funding for NPR, which has received the lion’s share of Republican accusations of liberal bias.

White House budget official warns CPB of ‘extreme dislike of NPR’

NPR’s legal documents provide the following chronology: In late March and early April, Trump contacted NPR and PBS "Monsters" He called on Congress to cancel federal funds allocated to them.

On April 2, CPB’s board directed officials to negotiate the finer details of a contract with NPR to operate the satellite for the next three years, according to NPR filings. The Radio Network has operated the system, through which local radio stations receive and share programs, podcasts and other content, for four decades.

Two days later, a senior White House budget official met with three executives at China’s central bank.

"It would be a shame to throw the baby out with the bathwater," said administration official Katherine Sullivan, according to accounts from CPB officials cited by NPR in its legal filings. She suggested that CPB could save its future and move it "intense hatred for NPR," Harrison wrote to NPR CEO Katherine Maher a few days later, according to recent NPR filings in the case.

Harrison expressed deep concerns that the White House would shut down CPB and public media more broadly. "This rumor has the power to transform into the boy who cried wolf," Harrison wrote in her email to Maher. "Except the wolf is really coming." Within days, CPB’s board moved to direct executives to rewrite the terms of the contract so that it could only be awarded to an entity that stood completely apart from NPR.

Even as they moved to cut NPR’s contract, linking the decision specifically to the political climate, court documents show that several CPB executives told a newly hired Republican consultant that they could not simply announce the withdrawal of NPR’s satellite contract to appease the White House.

"There are clear political challenges, but we cannot “admit it” directly." Debra Sanchez, the Communist Party’s chief of staff, wrote to Republican counsel Carl Forte, in one of many similar exchanges captured in court files provided by NPR. "So we are in a somewhat awkward position. What are the most powerful messages we can send about “why” or “because?”"

Despite all these efforts, when Trump and his Republican allies in Congress stripped public media of subsidies, it was the beginning of the end for the Chinese Communist Party. Non-profit It laid off most of its employees last month and is expected to close in January. Layoffs also followed at PBS and several public media stations.

NPR and CPB are fighting in court over a separate sum of money, worth tens of millions of dollars, to operate the satellite system.

CPB says NPR stations and public media stations may have separate interests

CPB argues that NPR is wrongly acting as if it is entitled to operate the satellite in perpetuity. Her legal team ignored NPR’s arguments that she acted because of political pressure. Instead, CPB asserts that, with federal subsidies eliminated, the interests of the radio network may differ from those of local public media stations. CPB lawyers say the decision to award the contract to another group is intended to ensure the stations’ long-term interests are protected.

The pulled offer from NPR — a three-year contract worth about $36 million — pales in comparison to the new offer announced in September. The value of this amount amounts to $57 million over five years. CPB awarded it to a consortium that includes New York Public Radio, American Public Media, the National Federation of Community Broadcasters and a consulting firm called Station Resource Group, among them. It’s called public media infrastructure, reviving the dormant international public radio non-profit.

Earlier this month, Harrison told officials at public media stations that received the latest round of federal grants that they would be forced to disclose unpleasant criticisms of NPR’s leadership as a result of the litigation.

"As this lawsuit progresses, CPB will be required to place in the public record evidence of its and others’ concerns about NPR’s management, its resistance to the innovation and reforms that many in our system have urged it to undertake, and its repeated dismissal of the importance of the federal appropriations that support public media," Harrison warned on October 13 in an email to station officials.

In court filings, CPB says the April decision came "After decades of studies conducted by external consultants" And it is embodied "The strategy is to have an independent entity that is more inclusive of a wide range of public media entities across the country" From NPR.

NPR bears political pressure behind the change of opinion

According to National Public Radio, these allegations represent a case study of what happens when institutions wither under a president’s unprecedented exercise of executive power. CPB and the Trump administration are co-defendants in the case, which was brought by NPR and three Colorado public radio stations Trump’s executive order Which simply sought to order the end of all federal funding for public media. After CPB earlier She sued Trump over his efforts to oust members of her boardHe described this as unconstitutional.

When CPB withdrew from its contract understanding with NPR, Sanchez hired Forte, a Republican consultant. On his first day on the job, April 10, he wrote a memo outlining the challenge facing CPB as he saw it: "Bias: The belief in the administration and among the general public that the media is biased against conservatives and more specifically against Trump. NPR is high on those lists."

On the same day, Trump Published online: "No more funding for NPR, a complete scam!"

On April 14 – the same day The news broke That Trump will formally ask Congress to cancel all future funding for CPB — CPB COO Kathy Merritt called her NPR counterpart, Ryan Merkley, to say the board had changed course. It will no longer give federal money to operate the public radio satellite and distribution system unless it is separated from NPR.

On Capitol Hill, with Trump seeking to eliminate all federal subsidies for public broadcasting, CPB executives mapped out a strategy to court Republican Sens. John Barrasso of Wyoming and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia — red states where statewide public media networks have broad appeal. (CPB’s chairman previously headed Wyoming PBS.)

But to no avail. The senators voted alongside all but two of their Republican colleagues to successfully eliminate all funding for public media — helping to seal CPB’s fate.

Disclosure: This story was reported and written by NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik. Edited by Deputy Business Editor Emily Cobb and Managing Editors Jerry Holmes and Vicki Walton James. Under NPR’s self-reporting protocol, no NPR corporate official or news director reviewed this story before it was published publicly.

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